How can market system approaches support public agricultural extension and rural advisory services to improve the lives of large numbers of poor farmers? That was the question of a Katalyst case study, and the focus of a BEAM webinar:

Agricultural extension services provide critical knowledge in the form of techniques and skills to farmers, with the aim to improve the productivity and sustainability of their operations. Traditional, public, top-down service models are often unable to meet farmers' needs. This has led to a shift towards decentralised and pluralistic systems, involving diverse public and private sector providers.

At this webinar we asked how development agencies working on market systems can effectively support agricultural extension services. We discussed why and how market system approaches can work rather than compete with public agencies, the roles of market actors, and the experiences and lessons from programmes taking this work forward on the ground.